Result of the day
SKA - Dinamo Riga 8-1. This result cannot be explained away by claiming that the visitors played dirty - their 16 minutes of penalties is nothing out of the ordinary - so they must have simply suffered a loss of heart. Whenever their opponents were gleefully capitalizing on the man advantage it seemed there was no one else out there on the ice. From the eight powerplays they were handed, the hosts greedily collected five goals.

SKA are on course to finish top of the regular season and so earn home advantage for every stage of the play-offs. On the other hand, it seems they are not too troubled by where they play. In St Petersburg? Eight goals, please. In Nizhnekamsk? We’ll have six.

Amur’s first collapse
It is the first time this season Amur have lost after scoring the first two goals. The men from the Far East had boasted a 2-0 lead in five previous matches, and had won all five. There are now only four clubs left in the League who are still yet to throw away such an advantage.

As for Avtomobilist, it is the third time this season they have fought back to win after trailing 0-2.

Novokuznetsk spring to life
Novokuznetsk Metallurg’s three goals in powerplay against Traktor will cheer their followers more than usual, as the Siberians have been notoriously shy of turning numerical advantage into goals. Dmitry Parkhomenko’s team has scored just 27 goals in powerplay, the lowest total in the League. Curiously, the second worst team on this score are Metallurg’s namesakes from Magnitogorsk.

New man between the pipes
Sibir goaltender Adam Munro is the 67th keeper to play at least one game in the current KHL championship. Novosibirsk’s newest goalie goes straight to 16th place in the table for percentage of shots saved, and to 36th place for efficiency rating.

Couldn’t hold on
When Avangard open the scoring, you can bet they will go on to win… usually. Igor Nikitin’s team have held on for victory 19 times out of 21, and on this score were sharing first place with Metallurg Magnitogorsk and Salavat Yulaev. Now the top spot is occupied by only two clubs, after Lokomotiv became the third team this season to come from behind and beat the men from Omsk.

Knocked down
Dinamo Riga had never before conceded eight goals in one game in the KHL, but their hammering at the hands of SKA is not the biggest defeat outright in their history, it merely equaled the club record. Last season the Latvians lost 0-7 to Metallurg Novokuznetsk.

Dallman marches on
The battle to be the championship’s top-scoring defenseman continues unabated. Kevin Dallman, with another assist, is moving ever closer to Sergei Zubov, and now the Petersburg player has 37 points, with the Canadian just a point behind. Despite setting up a goal, Kevin will probably want to forget the game against HC MVD. He merited an efficiency rating of -3 for the third time this season.

The Belarusian Legion
In the game with Severstal, three more players made their debuts for Dinamo Minsk, bringing the total number of players used this season by the Belarusians to 42. However, appearing in a game in which Dinamo have taken points is still yet to be experienced by nine of them, one goaltender, two defensemen and six attackers, although three of these have played only once, and Artem Ternavsky has left the team.

Lightning strike
Spartak forward Kirill Knyazev’s goal, coming 20 seconds into the third period, is the eighth fastest of the season. The current record of just 8 seconds belongs to Avtomobilist defenseman Vladislav Otmakhov, and he - like Knyazev - achieved his quick strike against Salavat Yulaev

Dangerous when outnumbered
Dynamo Moscow are now second best in the League at scoring short-handed goals, with seven so far this season. The leaders on this score, Barys, have scored just one goal more.

In the current championship every team has scored at least one goal while outnumbered, with the sole exception of Avangard.

Figures of the day
44 shots at the Dinamo Minsk goal from the Severstal players.

Quotes
“We made quite a weak start to the game,” - SKA head coach Barry Smith.

“Losing a game 12 seconds before the final siren is very hard to take,” - Severstal head coach Dmitry Kvartalnov.

“This morning, in training, I felt that the mood and adrenalin were missing,” - Dynamo Moscow head coach Andrei Khomutov.

“Do you want to build a statue in his honor? I think the team gave a good performance today, and it did not depend on Zinovyev,” - Salavat Yulaev head coach Vyacheslav Bykov, in answer to a question about whether his team rely too heavily on one of their best players.

Alexei Shevchenko, khl.ru

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KHL.ru is the official Web site of the Kontinental Hockey League. All KHL logos and marks as well as all other proprietary materials depicted herein are the property of the KHL and may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of KHL, ltd